Duly at evening Helen came To this lone silent spot, From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow So much of sympathy to borrow As soothed her own dark lot. Duly each evening from her home To sit upon that antique seat, While the hues of day were pale. His broad blue eyes on her; With a small feather for a sail, Its marble calm. And Helen smiled And that a mother, lost like her, Then all the scene was wont to swim Through the mist of a burning tear. For many months had Helen known This scene; and now she thither turned Her footsteps, not alone. The friend whose falsehood she had mourned Sate with her on that seat of stone. Silent they sate; for evening, And the power its glimpses bring, Had with one awful shadow quelled The passion of their grief. They sate With linked hands, for unrepelled Had Helen taken Rosalind's. Like the autumn wind when it unbinds The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet, Till her thoughts were free to float and flow; Like the bursting of a prisoned flame, I saw the dark earth fall upon The coffin; and I saw the stone In morning's light, in evening's gloom, My children knew their sire was gone; But, when I told them "he is dead," They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout; But I sat silent and alone, Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed. They laughed, for he was dead; but I Low muttering o'er his loathed name; I'll tell thee truth. He was a man With tears which each some falsehood told, Would give the lie to his flushing cheek. He was a coward to the strong; He was a tyrant to the weak, On whom his vengeance he would wreak : Were in youth's natural lightness gay, Or if they listened to some tale Of travellers, or of fairyland, When the light from the woodfire's dying brand Flashed on their faces,-if they heard, Or thought they heard, upon the stair His footstep, the suspended word Died on my lips. We all grew pale; The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near ; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully. I'll tell thee truth: I loved another. His name in my ear was ever ringing, Yet, if some stranger breathed that name, My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast. My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame, My days were dim in the shadow cast By the memory of the same. Day and night, day and night, He was my breath and life and light, For three short years which soon were past. In the fourth, my gentle mother Led me to the shrine, to be His sworn bride eternally. And now we stood on the altar stair, When my father came from a distant land, I saw the stream of his thin grey hair, And heard his words-and live! O God! He cried, "I tell thee 'tis her brother! Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold. We were once dear to one another, I walked about like a corpse alive. My father lived a little while; But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woful smile. When he was in the churchyard lying So that no one would give us bread; Faint words of cheer, which only meant So I went forth from the same church door To another husband's bed. And this was he who died at last, When weeks and months and years had passed, Through which I firmly did fulfil My duties, a devoted wife, With the stern step of vanquished will Walking beneath the night of life, The very hope of death's dear rest; Its strange sustainer there had been. When flowers were dead, and grass was green My wan eyes glitter for her sake, Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived; a living pulse then beat Beneath my heart, that awakened me. My own dull blood. 'Twas like a thought And crept with the blood through every vein; And then I wept. For long long years I wept to think how hard it were |